Parents Give District 20 Curriculum High Marks

Roselle/Hanover Park — The District 20 school board has been told that its overall curriculum generally received grades of "A" and "B" in a survey sent home to the parents of some 1,800 students.

In addition, responses to questions about particular areas of the curriculum indicated that 67 to 89 percent of those responding said the district's schools were meeting the needs of the children for each particular area.

Supt. Anthony Przeklasa said last week that the survey was modeled after a national Gallup Poll.

"Parents tend to be more positive about their own school as opposed to schools in general," Przeklasa said. "In our case, we scored even higher than trends based on the Gallup Poll indicated we should."

The survey also indicated that only 41 percent of the parents approved of "full inclusion," the practice of placing physically or mentally disabled children into regular classrooms to the greatest degree possible. He said District 20 was one of the first "full inclusion" districts in DuPage County.

In addition, only 33 percent of those surveyed in District 20 felt "that children with learning problems should be put in the same classes as those who have no problems."

"The results of our inclusion poll indicate we need to do a better job communicating with our parents about our successes in this program," Przeklasa said. "We have a task force that has been formed to look at what we do well and what we can do better, and the results of this poll will help them."